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By Lily Hay Newman and Dhruv Mehrotra
Life after Roe
How Google Benefits from Anti-Choice Clinics
Lost obstetricians
The dubious long-term abortion pill
Europe’s abortion minefield
The underground tablet market
Playing
TikTok has a suppression of information
If you search for the word “abortion pills” on the Telegram messaging service, a variety of public channels and equipment appear. Some have names like “Buy Abortion Pills” or “Mifepristone Misoprostol Abortion Pills,” while others offer recommendations on symptoms and practices. “After pregnancy it is ruled out. ” On May 3, an article on “ABORTION PILL MARKET” included a photo of a blister labeled abortion pills, next to the caption “We are legitimate. “
Lately there are more than two hundred teams and public channels on Telegram that explicitly mention the sale of abortion pills in their call or description, according to a WIRED survey. At the end of May, the last month for which we have complete data, 57 of the 211 computers we discovered were active, with at least one message sent that month.
The activity discovered on the platform similar to the promotion of abortion pills dates back to at least 2016, and many channels and teams serve consumers around the world. However, in the year since the U. S. Supreme Court has been handed down. it’s marketing to other people in the United States, according to Wired’s review of some 47,000 public posts pulled from those channels. And overall, public activity on Telegram similar to abortion pills has skyrocketed since last summer.
“Since its inception, Telegram has actively moderated destructive content, adding drug sales,” Telegram spokesman Remi Vaughn said. Terms of Service. “
Shady drug dealers and scams are not new to virtual platforms. After all, an almost universal delight from early adopters on the net who receive spam claiming to be offering penis enlargement pills. And in the decades since, dark web markets have fueled illegal drug distribution. However, like other prescription drugs, abortifacients are legal in some countries but not in others. In addition, in some places they may be prescribed for some purposes but not others, leaving patients potentially looking for tactics to fill the gap. gaps for their own care. In the United States, access to reproductive care, adding abortifacients, varies significantly from state to state.
Despite the strong accumulation of activity on Telegram similar to abortion pills, researchers say they see no evidence of a large new movement to illegally sell abortifacient abortifacients to Americans. Kat Green, an abortion researcher and founder of the online knowledge analysis platform Endora, says illegal abortion sales and similar questions about legitimacy and protection are not central themes lately in U. S. paintings. This is likely due in part to the fact that it is still legal in many U. S. states. the mail. And the prescription use of those pills, also known as medical abortion, is on the rise in the United States.
Analysis of the words used in the Telegram message collected through WIRED shows that many of those teams and channels don’t just claim to sell abortion pills. Phrases like “weight loss,” “muscle mass,” and “erection pill” were among the top 10 popular two-word words that made the impression in the dataset. And thousands of additional messages discussed “benzos,” “painkillers,” “Xanax,” “weed,” “coca,” and “weapons. “In total, at least a quarter of the channels seem to sell more than abortifacients.
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Hundreds of knowledge messages containing price data imply that the average cost of buying a purported pack of abortion pills on Telegram is ultimately $135.
The WIRED survey also indicates that the abortion tablet ecosystem on Telegram is a small world. Analysis of members and admins who send messages across teams and channels shows that many accounts are likely controlled by the same people. For example, a user named Dr. Pooja Gupta sent 1500 messages on nine channels or computers advertising the sale of abortion tablets. Pooja uses a WhatsApp number referenced by directors on 14 other channels. And some of them use similar names like Doctor Jain and Doctor Reenu. Many of those messages also refer to the same website.
After joining several of Dr. According to Pooja Gupta, WIRED reporters won a Telegram user message from a user known as Manisha Gupta offering a medical abortion for $90. When WIRED reporters expressed interest in making a purchase, a user prepared the order and sent a symbol appears on a blister pack of pills and an envelope with today’s date, as well as the address provided through WIRED for shipping.
Still sending messages on Telegram, a user submitted data about the Punjab National Bank account and instructed WIRED to send the payment through a service called Remitly. WIRED reporters closed the deal. When asked if he had had more U. S. -based clients, he was asked if he had more U. S. -based clients. In recent months, the user responded, “Since the new laws, I’ve been sending many more to the United States. “
Some teams on Telegram have US-specific names or descriptions. Most have more generic names and claim shipments to dozens of countries. For example, one of the largest and most active channels in the dataset is from August 2021 and is intended, in particular, to supply abortion pills to Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar and the Philippines, all countries where legal access to abortion is restricted.
Last June, researchers at security company DarkOwl detected a sharp increase in discussions on the dark web about how to connect people seeking abortions in the U. S. to the dark web. U. S. with abortifacients and other resources. Some sellers who were already promoting illegal drugs said they would also start promoting abortion drugs. At the time, however, the researchers said they did not see abortion pills on sale in most dark internet markets, but that “they can be purchased through classified ads on discussion forums, as well as classified ads. “Classified ads on short-term services.
Ian Gray, director of studies and studies at security firm Flashpoint, says changing topics like the covid-19 pandemic or the fall of Roe to the U. S. is a major change in the U. S. U. S. sales can cause trends in virtual scams and illicit online sales. But a survey conducted through Gray for WIRED Dark Internet Advertising Targeting the U. S. A U. S. survey over the past year revealed no dramatic increase in abortifacient-related content.
“At a higher level, it’s difficult to identify a significant buildup of gossip similar to abortion pills because of the cancellation of Roe v Wade last year,” Gray says. He notes, however, that “there is a limited number of publications in the past year in the markets, which would possibly imply a demand. Most of the posts, at least on Twitter and some on Telegram, are in Brazilian Portuguese, probably due to the ban on abortion pills.
As with many medical procedures, the stakes are incredibly high in medical abortion. But the patchwork of legislation and in the U. S. The U. S. trade war can make the outlook challenging for patients in need who may eventually turn to desperate illicit markets.
Updated at 3 p. m. ET, June 23, 2023, with a Telegram spokesperson.
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